


Liquid Assets

by Holladay Street (street)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Boats and Ships, Hurt/Comfort, Podfic Welcome, Romantic Ambiguity, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 08:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14849063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/street/pseuds/Holladay%20Street
Summary: Eames lives on a narrowboat in Regent's Canal. Arthur tries to disapprove on principle, and fails.





	Liquid Assets

Eames had one of the best spots in London. It was criminal really, how seldom he was home.

Arthur could break in with no fuss by now. The neighbors on either side even knew him. 

The first time Eames had brought Arthur home the circumstances had been odd to say the least. Arthur woke up short of breath, his ribs aching from the fists of their last mark's body guards, convinced that Eames had kidnapped him into a dream of demented gypsy wagons. Everything was 7/8th size and brightly painted, and there were suspicious amounts of crocheted lace.

But no, Eames just lived on a boat. Eames lived on a narrowboat named Liquid Assets, on a canal bang in the middle of London. There were leafy trees overhead, and swans that tapped against the side hatch every morning for food, and the easiest stroll to Warwick Avenue tube station and some profoundly decent coffee. And he had the audacity to leave? Ever? Arthur had gone from skepticism to jealousy in about five minutes. The swans helped. So did the tiny practicality of everything inside the boat - whatever mind had designed this thing it wasn't Eames's; this was actually efficient. 

So Arthur broke in when he had downtime between jobs. Eames was in Thailand this time he was pretty sure. Anyways, he wasn't here. His stove was full of cold soot and the only thing in the tiny refrigerator was some very green cheese.

Arthur unpacked. He'd had a drawer here for a year now - tucked away in an odd angle of the boat's hull, in a spot Eames had obviously forgotten about. Arthur pulled out a clean shirt and corduroys and a pair of his favorite socks, and stripped out of his travel clothes to start a load of wash. The laundry facilities were tiny too of course, tucked into the back cabin amongst the smells of engine grease and all-weather paint. 

Arthur dusted the lounge. He went shopping and got a nod from the lady at the till (she'd seen him here just two weeks ago after all). He put a frozen pizza in the oven, hung his washing to dry, and cleaned cinder ash out of the stove. He started a fire and spent the evening with his wool-socked feet propped up against the grate, eating pizza and watching the river. Why anybody would leave this for a life of crime was beyond him. Of course there was only one bed, so maybe it was better this way.

 

Eventually Eames caught on when Arthur left a notice from British Waterways pinned to the kitchen cupboard with a bootknife. The notice was from three weeks before, with a tidy note scratched in one corner in red ink. 

"Public meetings are important, Eames. You should take moorage fees seriously. This matter affects the whole community. -A"

Eames smiled.

They had been in Malmö together the previous week, and Arthur made fun of him every day but one and had sprawled against him beautifully at the bar after the extraction. But an hour later when Eames knocked on Arthur's hotel door with a six of beer in hand and his heart on his sleeve Arthur had been gone.

Yet 48 hours later he'd been and gone from Eames' boat and left the water tank almost empty. The bastard.

 

The next time Arthur stayed on Liquid Assets was a little different. His shoulder had been wrenched. Not badly, but it was hot and tender. And in 7 hours he'd be on a flight to L.A. He took a long shower, shoved some clothes into his drawer still dirty, and pulled out a change for the plane. Then he strapped a cold pack to his shoulder and opened the side hatch. It was midday. The weak sunlight made Regent's Canal sparkle just a little. Some ducks were busy conning food out of the tourists on the opposite bank. Another narrowboat cruised by - a rental with a loud group of students on board waving and drinking beer. Arthur waved back and imagined casting off and following them up the canal - mooring beside a towpath somewhere, walking to an unknown village for bread, speaking the local language without constant mental translation, not having to watch his back. He imagined buying rubber boots and spending a nice day like this refinishing the foredeck where the varnish was flaking. 

It wasn't that Arthur wanted to build a nest, more that he wanted a snail's shell he could bring along with him. For the longest time it had been his suitcase - wheels, a universe of clothes and data and nice pens snug inside. He rattled around in every apartment he rented but his suitcase was just the right size. But here was a place that he fit. His unpacked suitcase exactly took up the roomy drawer under the bed that he had confiscated from Eames last time he was here. The fridge held just enough food for a short break between jobs. This could be home.

But it was Eames' home, not his, so he packed for the airport.

Thirty-seven hours later he was back. The meeting in L.A. had been a bust - he'd been jumped by the group he was supposed to be militarizing, and his shoulder was now seriously fucked. Airport security had confiscated his ice pack, he hadn't been able to upgrade his seat, and the flight attendant had doled out exactly two aspirin. He took a cab straight to Little Venice instead of his usual triple-back for safety, and creaked towards the boat. 

There was smoke coming out of the Liquid Assets' chimney. His first thought was an intruder - the thing was ludicrously easy to break into - but Eames opened the foredeck hatch as he approached.

"Hello ducks, thought you might want a hand when you got back"

Arthur stopped. "How did you know I was coming?"

"You don't want to know what Robinson was posting on twitter after that meeting, dear. And since this is your hidey-hole I thought 'wouldn't it be nice to get it all cozy for him?'" Eames looked somewhere between puppydog eager and far too smug.

"Do you have high-grade painkillers on board? And is there enough water for a shower?"

"Yes and yes. Come in darling. I'll make you a sandwich." 

Arthur went.

 

Arthur woke the next morning to the smells of smoke and bacon. The smoke was fine - he'd been meaning to ask the neighbors how to clean the chimney, but until the flue was working better everything would be a little smokey. 

The bacon was the problem. Arthur loved bacon like he loved coffee. But while loving coffee was in line with with being an organized badass, crunchy bacon that made him grin to dimpling was bad for his image. He was willing to give Eames some privileged information after this long, but letting on to the bacon thing would just be asking for blackmail.

But Eames had given him the bed last night. And he vaguely remembered Eames handing him pain meds and easing a fresh ice pack against his shoulder sometime in the night. He was stiff this morning, but feeling better than he'd expected. And he could see his favorite swan Hermengard outside on the canal with her signets (well, he always thought of her as Hermengard - the wildlife biologists who'd chatted him up on the towpath last month said her name in the National Aquatic Bird Database was H-526, but he'd assured Arthur that swans were open to nicknames). Arthur rolled onto his good side and pushed up to sitting, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed and finding . . . his slippers. His. The ones he'd always carried in his suitcase until they found a better home in the odd little drawer at the back of the boat. So Eames knew about that drawer after all. Well. Hmm.

He wrapped himself in the quilt (resilutely not thinking about the fact that he appeared to be wearing an Arsenal shirt he vividly remembered Eames wearing on a backwoods recognizance trek last year). The galley had some shelving that more or less screened it from the lounge, so he had some hope of discretion while he and the bacon had a moment.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was brought to you entirely by my decade-long obsession with narrowboats.


End file.
